In an era of fierce competition between such hardened professionals as Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, the French racing driver Patrick Tambay managed to bring the air and the ethics of an old-school gentleman amateur to the Formula One paddock.
Tambay, who has died aged 73, had the skill and tenacity to win two grands prix for the Scuderia Ferrari, the Ferrari racing team. Sometimes, however, there were other priorities. In Detroit in 1983 he exasperated its manager by skipping a post-race debrief in order to find a television on which to watch his compatriot Yannick Noah win the French Open tennis tournament.
Although he was widely admired for his charm and good looks during his time as a grand prix driver, and in his subsequent career as a television commentator, Tambay’s pair of victories during nine seasons and 114 races in the top flight perhaps suggested that he lacked the crash-proof ego and sheer ruthlessness that characterise most F1 champions.
But it said a great deal for the regard in which he was held that when he was invited to drive for Ferrari after his friend Gilles Villeneuve had been killed at Zolder in 1982, in an accident that profoundly shocked the motor racing world, he seemed the best possible choice to take over the car bearing the number 27, with which the great French Canadian had become indelibly associated.
His subsequent win in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim did much to restore the Scuderia’s morale, which had sunk even lower when Ferrari’s other driver, Didier Pironi, suffered career-ending injuries in a crash during practice for that race.
Tambay was born in Paris to parents who loved sport. His father, a property developer on the Côte d’Azur, played tennis and his mother swam, both competitively. His own first choice was skiing, on snow and water. After two years at university in Colorado, he won a place as a downhill specialist in France’s Alpine skiing team under the leadership of Jean-Claude Killy, the triple Olympic champion.
In 1971 Tambay took a course at the Winfield racing drivers’ school, based at the Paul Ricard circuit in the south of France. Victory in the annual Pilote Elf contest took him into the French Formula Renault series, followed by three seasons in Formula Two. While he searched for a place in F1, it was in the US that he made a mark, first in F5000 with Teddy Yip’s Theodore Racing team and then in the Can Am series with Carl Haas’s Lola, taking the title in 1977 and 1980.
His entry into F1 came in 1977, in finishing fifth in Holland and Canada in Theodore Racing’s Ensign-Ford. For 1978 he was contacted by Ferrari but chose to join McLaren, where his efforts during two years with the team were hindered by uncompetitive cars. He returned to Theodore, now running their own car, at the start of 1981, before switching to Ligier midway through the season, but failed to finish any of his eight races with the French team.
It seemed that his F1 career might be over, when the call came from Ferrari in 1982. Villeneuve had been killed two weeks after a bitter dispute with Pironi, who had broken an understanding between them to win at Imola. Tambay’s healing win at Hockenheim was followed by another at Imola in 1983, but René Arnoux, his new teammate, took three victories that season as the Ferrari pair finished third and fourth in the drivers’ standings. At the end of the year Tambay was replaced by Michele Alboreto.
Two seasons at Renault, alongside Derek Warwick, were disappointing, despite a second place at Dijon in 1984 and two thirds at Estoril and Imola the following year. For 1986, his last year in F1, he rejoined Haas’s team, driving their new Lola, but the most notable incident came at Monaco, when his car collided with Martin Brundle’s Tyrrell and rolled over before coming to rest on its wheels, the driver unharmed.
Out of F1, Tambay competed in ice races and jet-ski competitions and developed an affection for the Paris-Dakar rally, in which he twice finished third. At Le Mans in 1989 he finished fourth in the 24 Hours, sharing the wheel of a works Jaguar.
After retiring from competition he became a commentator for the RMC Sport channel while also serving as mayor of Le Cannet, a town of 40,000 people inland of Cannes, and as a councillor for the Alpes-Maritime department. His later years were affected by the onset of Parkinson’s disease.
He is survived by his second wife, Dominique, and their son, Adrien, who is also a racing driver; and by a daughter, Esti, and son, Loïc, from his first marriage.
• Patrick Daniel Tambay, racing driver, born 25 June 1949; died 4 December 2022
